loveMELT Newsletter #021: Still Late

As promised last loveMELT, the poem correlating to the painting in progress, Late Bloomer

Late Bloomer

Late to start my period as a kid 
Never grew tits 

Had a fling in high school
Missed the whole loveboat in college

Late to go on a date with the same person
more times than eight 

Late to learn how to see
Late to learn how I want to be 
Late to learn it always boils down 
to nothing 
if I’m unable to create 

Late to make a salary
but you can have it back 
Is it too late to say fuck it 
to go back to bartend?
I’m told it’s too early for this corporate game
to be driving me this insane…
but God do I hate being the bait

Anxiety riddles all over the place
Shoots and ladders board
gaming the system 
every two faces
I’m getting lost in a headspace
without the taste
to articulate

So I’m told to care less
but that makes me careless
which I can’t be

One thing I could care less about 
is this stupid career 
and this supposed nest egg 
I’m bound to receive 
I’m not holding my breath for anyone I work for or for this government 
to give anything worth giving 
back to me 

I’ve spent my adult life learning to unlearn 
all the things I was expected to believe
just to keep myself okay   
so now I’m late to the place where I could even think to procreate
and it’s getting late for this body, the real nest, to give birth to a being 
So those days my period is late
my mind contemplates 

If I did have a kid, would they think me a disgrace?
Or would they feel the same kind of displaced 
my kind has been so good at making people feel up to date?
Z is the last letter of the alphabet
and this generation is called it

Is it fate?
Is it too late? 

Mom said I’d be a late bloomer 
but I never dreamt it would amount to this 

I’ve added another layer to the painting, more to come

Sadie Monroe, Late Bloomer, Oil on Canvas, work in progress

If you missed last newsletter, I talked about the inspiration and meaning of this painting in the works, Late Bloomer. To learn more about the history and contemporary happenings in Still Life painting, you can check out some of the interesting findings below:

• How Artists Have Kept Still Life Painting Alive Over Thousands of Years

• 12 Famous Flower Paintings that Make the Canvas Bloom

• 17 Contemporary Artists Reimagining the Still Life

And because Spring is in the air, I’ve created a playlist for you: